A Disappearing Act

Salutations friends and followers. Its me, your dating guide here with another blog full of insights and handy tips. I’ve been slacking with the blog due to focusing on my personal life so I apologise if you’ve been eagerly awaiting my prose.

I have been struggling to think of content people actually want to read about which doesn’t involve me having to embarrass myself by sharing my dating nightmares. I’ve had several conversations with people over the past few months and the topic that continues to come up is ghosting. To those who aren’t savvy with the slang of today, ghosting (according to urban dictionary) simply means…

‘When a person cuts off all communication with their friends or the person they’re dating, with zero warning or notice before hand. You’ll mostly see them avoiding friend’s phone calls, social media, and avoiding them in public.’

Savage, right? Yet it’s such a common thing to do these days. Thanks to the internet you can reply to someone’s question in real time, in an hour, in 3 days, or never if you cant be bothered. We wouldn’t dare walk away from someone mid conversation to never return again, yet its entirely the norm online.

Now, I must clarify that when it comes to ghosting you might as well call me Casper because I ghost people A LOT! I’m not proud of it and i try to avoid it where possible, but I do find myself doing it more than I’m willing to admit. And I wont just ignore someone, I’ll wipe all traces of myself from their life. Unmatched, deleted and blocked, BOY BYE. The stupid thing about it is that the majority of people I end up ghosting have literally never done anything to upset or annoy me. I just panic and commit to things like dates when actually I’d rather die. I am such an anxious person and such a coward I cant even pluck up the courage to say to a guy that I’ve changed my mind or that I’m not feeling up to it.

It’s a fucking horrible thing to do to someone and I know it sucks because I’ve had it done to me and I have spoken to friends about it. I even put a poll out on Instagram (only the most extensive research for my readers) and 68% of voters had been ghosted on the day of a date (my favourite time to do it). That means people (including myself) have built up a conversation enough to ask to meet someone, arrange plans to not even get let down gently, but body slammed into a concrete floor. I know it’s super rich, me writing about how horrible it is when I’m pretty much an expert in it. In fact, I’ve already done it this week and it’s only Wednesday!

I guess the point of this blog is to mostly demonise myself in the hopes it’ll stop me from being such an insensitive ass hat. After speaking to a friend about being ghosted for the second time by the same girl I couldn’t help but think ‘fuck, this is really horrible’. He’d invested time in this girl and even given her a second chance and she STILL GHOSTED HIM! It made me so angry that some girl online would dick my friend over, TWICE. He didn’t deserve it and as far as I was concerned she was a piece of shit. It wasn’t until that moment that I suddenly saw the effects of how it actually might effect a guy.

Did it make me change the way I act…did it fuck. That’s the problem with the internet and online dating, you assign very little loyalty to people you’ve met online. Plus, I live by the rule that I owe no one anything, especially if we are talking on Tinder which only makes things worse. This makes people incredibly disposable to each other, hence why ghosting is so prominent in today’s society. We will talk to numerous people at once but have no commitment to anyone. We don’t even take 5 minutes to send someone a message to say ‘Hey, sorry I’ve given it a bit more thought and I don’t think this is going to work’ or telling someone they aren’t your type or you’ve changed your mind. Like I said, we are all a bunch of cowards, but worst of all we have little to no empathy for anyone online.

So we know that we are all a bunch of spineless twats, but the real question is how can we stop it happening? Personally, the most common triggers for me ghosting are:

Agreeing to a date too hastily and going off the idea

Conversation being too boring

Meeting someone and not feeling a vibe

Generally going off someone (I have a stalk on Insta and they aren’t as good looking as I’d hoped)

All really minor things to ignore someone for and things they can’t necessarily help. So how can I make a conscious effort to avoid any situations where I might hurt someone’s feelings?

If I’m unsure of a guy and they ask me out then politely decline but continue to get to know them and talk to them until I feel sure I want to meet them. Obviously I don’t want to string them along for months or lead them on. Alternatively, I can just straight up tell the guy I’m feeling nervous or unsure about the date. He will either take offence and tell me to fuck off or he will reassure me and make things less awkward for me.

This one is difficult because sometimes conversations die naturally and there’s not a lot you can do about that. I guess this one is more aimed towards people you’ve met up with already and have decided to ghost after (so this can be 2 and 3). It’s probably only fair to tell someone straight up that you didn’t feel a vibe – if they contact you after and ask to meet or are really trying to have a conversation with you otherwise I think letting the conversation die naturally is fine.

I go off people really easily and that’s mostly down to me not actually wanting a relationship because I think all (most) men are trash and just gonna cause me nothing but anguish and heartache. Again, it really shouldn’t be too hard to just tell someone you’re not interested. And I know I can do it because I’ve done it before. When I first joined Tinder in January I was chatting to 2 or 3 guys that I decided I wasn’t actually that interested in so I told them I didn’t think it was going to go anywhere, wished them the best and went on my merry way. I felt better for doing it and had a clear conscience and the guys were super chilled and thanked me for being honest. It takes nothing to show a little respect to someone.

I say these things as though I’m actually going to follow them and I know damn well I wont because its just too easy to ignore someone and pretend they don’t exist. But manners do really cost nothing and I like to follow the rule ‘treat others how you’d like to be treated’ and I sure as shit don’t want to get ignored and to be dropped like a sack of shit. So, I, Charlotte Jade Tomney, hereby promise I will make more of an effort to not ghost boys, regardless of the situation. I won’t jump into dates if I’m unsure with guys and I will be open and honest from the beginning.

I hope those of you that read this also take my advice to myself and apply it to your dating habits. I’m not a horrible person and ghosting is such a nasty thing to do so I’m hoping I can kick my habit and just be an all round babe.

Let me know about your ghosting stories whether you’ve been on the receiving end or not because I’m really curious as to what makes us do it and why.